Hart
Growing into a mainstay of the community since its founding as the Cash Corner mercantile store in 1866 (started by Alsatian immigrant, Leopold Hart), San Jose's Leopold Hart and Son Department Store, on the downtown, southeast corner of Market and Santa Clara Streets is known for it's outstanding customer services, along with deep customer and employee loyalty, and has become the city's version of Macy's or Neiman Marcus. In 1933 the store is run by Leopold's son, Alex J. Hart (known as A.J.), while it's next chief operating officer is being groomed for command, Alex's son, Brooke ... a young man who is well liked in the community he grew up in, from a young age works in the store learning it's operation from the ground floor up while attending the local Catholic school, Bellarmine College Preparatory, receives a B.S. degree from nearby Santa Clara University, and is made a junior vice president of the business. A bright future for the young man is expected by the community until Hart mysteriously disappears on Thursday, November 9, 1933.
The Store In 1926
Agreeing to drive his 64-year-old father to a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce at the San Jose Country Club (A.J. does not drive), shortly after a full day at work, at around 6:00 in the evening, Hart goes to the parking lot behind the store to retrieve the graduation present he has received from his parents for his successful studies at Santa Clara University, a 1933, green Studebaker President Eight roadster (he is also to drop his sister off at home after taking his father to his destination). Responsible and punctual, his father begins worrying immediately when the youngster fails to show up in front of the store for the pair's journey to the country club ... worries that are well founded when the family home soon begins receiving a kidnapper's ransom demands (a 9:30 call taken by one of Hart's two younger sisters, Aleese, saying instructions for the release of Hart will soon be forthcoming, and a 10:30 call, taken by the other sister, Miriam, stating that $40,000 will be needed for her brother's release, with delivery instructions to be provided the next day). The San Jose police, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, and the U.S. Division of Investigation (today's current F.B.I.) are all soon involved, and a trace is put on the family home that shows phone calls to the family about the crime from several sites in San Francisco. Clues followed (abandoned with it's lights on, Hart's car is discovered on a road between San Jose and Oakland), the SS Lurilane is detained and searched in Los Angeles when Hart's wallet is found on the guard rail of the tanker that had been refueling the liner before its departure (among those detained for three hours while the ship is searched in Los Angeles is Hall-of-Fame baseball player, Babe Ruth ... making the journey south to take in the football game between U.S.C. and Stanford) and a bank teller out for an evening stroll is arrested but then released, when the kidnapper's request ransom delivery by way of a night train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Throughout, the family is hopeful, but wary, and continues to tell and signal the kidnapper that they will agree to the ransom, but that A.J. can not deliver it because he doesn't drive. The break in the case comes when a frustrated kidnapper calls the family house again demanding A.J. drive the ransom to a drop off site and lingers too long at the phone ... a pay phone in a parking garage only 150 feet from the San Jose Police Station. Running to the garage, police, led by Sheriff William Emig, arrest Thurmond at 8:00 in the evening, and by 3:00 in the morning, have a confession to Hart's kidnap and murder, and the name of Thrmond's partner, Holmes. Soon arrested himself, Holmes also confesses to the crimes, with a slight variation, everything was planned and executed by Thurmond and Holmes only helped with having a getaway car available in Milpitas (a small town seven miles distant from San Jose).
Roadster
SS Lurilane
The Kidnappers - Holmes (L) And Thurmond (R)
Recanted almost immediately (with rumors that the confessions have been beaten out of the prisoners), in the horrific tale told by the pair (the men have been friends for over a year and bond over bitching about the women in their lives, the economy, and drinking ... Thurmond is a high school dropout that has been fired from his service station job when the night till during his shift comes up short, and Holmes is an out-of-work oil salesman), after six weeks of plotting, at gunpoint, Hart is taken in the department store parking lot, forced to drive out of town, moved to another vehicle, and at a spot on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge over San Francisco Bay, beaten unconscious with a brick, then tied up with baling wire, and connected to concrete blocks, thrown into the water ... but the kidnappers butcher the job (it is low tide when Hart is sent off the bridge), and when their victim is seen struggling with his bonds below, the killers on the bridge shoot him too (unsuccessfully, when an autopsy is finally performed on Hart, it will be found he drowned to death as the waters of the bay rise, a horrible slow death). Now with a location to probe, authorities soon find that the men know what they were talking about ... two 22-pound bricks with bloodstains are found at the bridge, a pillowcase used to hood Hart's head is discovered, and also at the site is the hat the victim was wearing on his last day. No body is found though despite authorities dragging the bay, using a weighted dummy to find where the tide might take someone, enlisting the public in the search (A.J. has offered a $500 reward for the person that locates his son), using a blimp from Sunnyvale to search from the sky, having boats from the Oakland, San Francisco police departments, and the United States Marines comb the area, and dredging the mud up from under the bridge. Meanwhile, a kind madness descends over the region.
The Dump Spot?
Killers in custody, because of lynch threats, the men are first sent to the Potrero Hill police station in San Francisco, but later transferred back to San Jose. The local newspaper runs a front page editorial calling the two suspects in the case, "human devils" and calls for "mob violence" to rectify the situation. Reportedly, twenty prominent friends of the Hart Family form a not so secret committee to see that "immediate and drastic punishment" is meted out to Thurmond and Holmes. Prosecutors decide not to seek a grand jury, thinking an indictment against the men would only further inflame the locals, but comment that without further evidence, the twin confessions might counter each other and not be usable in court. There are rumors that both men might attempt to get off by claiming to have been driven insane by failed romances (Holmes is dumped by his wife after she discovers he is carrying on an affair with his high school sweetheart, and Thurmond gets a "NO" when he proposes to his girlfriend ... over a year before the crime!), but both men are found to be completely sane during a cursory examination in their cells by two psychiatrists from nearby Agnes State Mental Hospital. And on November 23, reporters are shocked when asking about the National Guard being called in to protect the prisoners, California Governor James "Sunny Jim" Rolph states, "Let the sheriff handle the matter. He can appoint as many deputies as he wants: he has the power. I am not going to call the guard to protect the kidnappers who willfully killed a fine boy like that. Let the law take its course." San Francisco lawyer Vincent Hallinan is retained by the Holmes family to represent his interests at trial (calling the governor to request protection for Homes, Rolph tells the lawyer if the San Jose jail is attacked, he'll pardon the lynchers!), and Chico attorney J, Oscar Goldstein is pegged to provide his services to Thurmond, but the case will never get to court.
Thurmond In Custody - Sheriff Emig At Left
Front Page
Governor Rolph
Powder keg primed to explode, the spark comes with the discovery of Hart's badly decayed body, dined on by crabs, by two duck hunters from Redwood City, about half a mile south of the bridge.
As crowds gather downtown, all day Sunday and into the evening in northern California, radio stations broadcast that a lynching will take place in San Jose that night (throughout the day, the swelling crowd gathering at St. James Park ominously chants, "11:00"). Rolph stays in communication with Raymond Cato, the head of the California Highway Patrol (who is in home near the city of a political ally, and has an open line to the jail), and at 9:00, cancels leaving the state for the Western Governors' Conference in Boise, Idaho, so that Lt. Governor Frank Merriam can not take over the reigns of government and call out the guard. At 10:30, Sheriff Emig makes a last call to the governor for help, and is refused.
The Body Discovered
And Removed
Stirring The Pot!
Enough finally enough, after authorities try to disperse the mob (a gathering estimated to be between 5,000 and 15,000 men, women, and children ... and one of the mob, said to be holding a rope, is rumored to be Hart's college pal, the child actor who will one day be Uncle Fester on TV, actor Jackie Coogan), and youth screams for, "all true men with guts enough, to follow me and get these sonsofbitches," at the expected time of 11:00 p.m.(incredibly, radio station KQW telecasts the lynching as it takes place), using materials from a nearby construction site (where the San Jose Museum of Art is now located), craft a battering ram and break into the jail and take Thurmond and Holmes (the sheriff and his men retreat to the upper floors of the structure). Beaten bloody and clothes torn off (Holmes will be left wearing only a sock and one shoe) as they are marched across the street and into the park, Holmes fights his attackers and has his arms broken for the effort ... his last words are, "Don't string me up boys. God, don't string me up." Entreaties which the mob ignores. While Thurmond goes to his reward without any further words, beaten unconscious by the mob before he dances with the air. Mob violence and justice meted out (Royce Brier, a staff writer for the local newspaper will win the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for his report on the evening), the mob leaves the bodies dangling from their death tree for over thirty minutes ... while they dance in celebration, claw at the corpses, take pictures and souvenirs (bark form the gallows' tree is one sought after item), and leave the scene (over 3,000 vehicles have been left willy-nilly on the streets of the downtown area).
Attacking The Jail
Removing The Prisoners
Thurmond
Holmes
In the aftermath of vigilante violence, many will praise the lynchers (Governor Rolph will double down on his feelings about what has happened, stating it has been "the best lesson ever given the country," and that "I would like to parole all the kidnappers in San Quentin to the fine, patriotic citizens of San Jose" ... the San Jose News openly condoned the hangings, and a Stanford professor tells his class to stand up and clap for the mob), but many also condemn the action (arguing about the case, radio technician Oscar Rouef shoots his father to death before killing himself), including former President Herbert Hoover and the current president, Franklin Roosevelt, along with various law enforcement officials like Alameda County County District Attorney Earl Warren (the future California governor and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court) and the head f the A.C.L.U.). Despite literally thousands of eyewitnesses, reporters at the scene, and photographic evidence, only seven people are ever arrested for the lynchings, and none are ever convicted (including one young man who has bragged about town of leading the mob on). Additionally, a lawsuit against Governor Rolph, by Holmes' parents, is dropped when Rolph dies of a heart attack in 1934, and Holmes' widow's suit against Sheriff Emig fails (after much discussion, the city council votes to remove the trees the men were hung from, to prevent future morbid mementos from being taken).
Warren
Called "The Last California Lynching," the San Jose crime of course lives on in books (Swift Justice, published in 1992 wins a 1993 Edgar Award), a play written by San Jose mayor, Tom McEnery (also called Swift Justice), two short stories by fabled author, John Steinbeck (The Lonesome Vigilante and The Vigilante), and in parts of four movies, 1936's Fury (directed by Fritz Lang and starring Spencer Tracy), 1950's The Sound of Fury (featuring Frank Lovejoy and Lloyd Bridges as the doomed criminals), 2004's Night Without Justice, and 2006's Valley of the Heart's Delight. And sometime in the future, there will probably be more!
Steinbeck
Movie Poster
Fitting end to a couple of murderers.
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